


case study: the essentiality of the loved and the lover

by subterfuge (oikita)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Essay-like, Love, M/M, No Plot/Plotless, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 16:47:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29353689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oikita/pseuds/subterfuge
Summary: Love isn't taught. It's an inherent feeling.Or: talking to Miya Atsumu about his passion for love and loving his lover feels like talking to the embodiment of love itself.
Relationships: Kita Shinsuke/Miya Atsumu
Kudos: 8
Collections: Atsukita Week





	case study: the essentiality of the loved and the lover

**Author's Note:**

> i try to think about atsumu talking to some counselor about this or a fortune teller, or maybe you yourself. if you notice the change of pronouns throughout the context, then it's due to the discussion evolving. 
> 
> this is an early valentine's day treat and atsukita week contribution. this is actually for the seventh day of the week event but unfortunately, i will be busy for the rest of the month, and this is the only time i am free. 
> 
> **(spoiler) there's also a bit of mentioning about betrayal. it's not explicit, it's just about cheating on a test and how betrayal can affect your relationship with people who trust you. skip through if you are unsettled by it. it starts at 'one thing your mother taught you is that love is devoid of malintentions' and ends at 'you knew yourself but not as much as he did'.**

  
  
  


Falling in love is like snatching the peak of a moment’s victory. It’s like knowing you’ve finally allowed yourself to grow, to let bloom stretch your beauty across an ocean of flowers. It’s like everything has finally come together for a final bow and an opening sequence. The emotion you feel when you come to your senses, the _relief_ , if anything, is like a blessing found under the bridge of a highway. You can only see it when you’ve caught yourself in wires of misery. When you’re falling from the top of the bridge into the river, you’d see it waving at you, smiling at you, telling you that of all times you begged God to give you something, this might just be the perfect time to let it carry you safely back home. And for one thing, you probably didn’t believe in God yet prayed anyway, because this was all you’ve been talking about, right? At night when you’re tucked in bed, looking at the ceiling, asking the cement if God existed and if they were willing to grant you one wish like finding the missing puzzle piece underneath your couch. 

You know you are sure of someone when their comfort is your comfort and their pain is your pain. Their eyes glow red when you are hurt and their will to barbarism becomes prominent when finding who hurt you. Love has always been so important to you, like if the world can just be deprived of all bad natures and left with only love, you’d probably end up believing in God more than you do, because you believe there’s no such thing as _love only in a world of hate many_. Does it suck, though? When you are sure of someone and they fall dubious of your intentions. Does it suck when, of all the times they could leave you, it’s when your life is finally complete? Have you ever felt it’s wrong to assume when all this time you’ve always consumed what your presumption tells you? 

Let me read your mind and tell you what you’re answering. Of course it sucks when they are not sure, but being another soul watching a different one, you can only do so much as to accept, because their comfort is your comfort and their pain is less than a half of yours. It also sucks when you think you’ve completed the maze but the tunnel breaks down and the debris, cracked rocks of cement are blocking your way. Like you think this is the end but it’s just a manmade barricade of misfortune. You assume way too much that your own perception is your own perpetrator. 

But you look at the bright side, never missing a second to do so, because you are aware that life is built to hurt you and life falls eventually at times when you’re fine. No one is ever miserable without a smile and no one can ever smile without feeling miserable. That’s how it works, you engrave it in your mind, have it memorized with more muscles than an actor when they read their lines. 

Reassurance is like driving in the middle of a dark-coded road with no headlights but you won’t lose your direction. You keep driving even if it’s almost impossible to see anything up close, or even a sign of life, as if driving into a void. It’s not stubbornness sometimes, it’s the ability to discern the trustworthy path up ahead even if it may or may not lead to anywhere. Reassurance is built to give pressure on doubt, it’s the hand on your shoulder encouraging you to keep up. It’s the pair of arms letting you go to venture on your own so you can find your way back to it again. The feeling is similar to the way a wash of calm leads itself to you after a wave of nausea. The reminder that _all bad things don’t remain in the end if it’s never been in the beginning_. It wakes you up from this nightmare that spun you while you’re deep in slumber. You’re okay; with your lover reassuring you without having to ask for it, you’re more than okay. 

Loving is a habit. You, of all people, cannot be heedless. _Loving you is a habit I’d never grow out of_ , you tell your lover, because it’s better than the simple _I love you._ It is in the nature of human beings to continue loving like it’s an essential to live, like the kisses we pucker are the oxygen we breathe. You, of all people, are the master of this art. It’s a painting that won’t take you days to finish. It’s a sculpture that gods can never steal away from you, a talent crafted by your mother’s own. 

Hm, love is like an adventure. It’s an epic poetry about two people finding each other amidst the battlefields of their emotions and weaknesses. Finding each other in the hidden caves of a forest, rejoicing with sweet delight. Love is not worship. Many people may contradict you with this, but you are firm with the belief that it isn’t. Because in worship, there is fanatic devotion. You do not see your lover in a way that poses an equality between the two of you. Your lover is no god as he is no stranger to imperfection. He is hastened by his efforts to grow and mature and you are only a witness of it. If there is anything good about worship that will inspire to maybe consider it, it is devotion. Devotion has its own derivation of self-control, whereas the person holding it does not. Sometimes its control does not pass through the person, just like you. You are monstrous. Your lover bears the gaze of a monster.  _ He is a monster holding his own banquet and we are just his servants _ , you say, knowing that you are not the first one to have loved him this way. 

To your lover, falling in love felt like a metaphor. Describing a feeling, comparing it to something completely different, with no conjunctions to modify the contrast and similarity. It feels like putting two together without the need to explain why. You can say,  _ love is a rock that bounces off the edge, thinking it has wings to help its body balance against gravity _ . Where’s the close resemblance of an expression to an animated life form? You don’t know, he doesn’t know, but he understands you anyway. Love is a telepathic force where you don’t need to understand what he’s saying. It just… makes sense. 

Communication defies time. According to most people, a relationship doesn’t just require communication, but comprehension as well. There’s a bigger impact in understanding what’s spoken to you, or what you’ve told them. There lies the trust, loyalty and love itself. Communication defies time because there’s no wrong timing or right timing in expressing anything to your lover. You shouldn’t have said this right now, but perhaps your lover still needed it. This is the perfect time to tell your partner about it, but maybe it’ll not make them fall asleep later. It doesn’t really matter when you choose the time to confess something. Sometimes the impact is based on how you feel about it rather than the moment you voiced it out. Your lover is understanding, a ray of calm in the middle of a sandstorm, and that storm is you. You are hazy as a fog that turns into a tornado. Or like ashes spewing in the air that insinuates a volcanic eruption. You are a lot of things, and he’s like the essential feeling. Something like that. Your lover is a worshipper of simpler things. You devote yourself to the higher gods. 

Opposites attract when they connect using the right ions. 

He’s always been different from you. Lesser monstrosity, finer quality. You’ve always been the feral dog between the two of you and he’s the master that puts you on a leash. Love is more than that, you both know it like a muscle memory. It’s just an assignment of roles, but the affection is deeper. 

One thing your mother taught you is that love is devoid of malintentions. Love is pure and bright. It is not a competition, a satisfaction of needs. It is a  _ want _ , a desire that roots from affection and adoration, not a trophy one must achieve. For a trophy can be discarded, rusted in time, but a lover won’t. A lover’s soul lasts longer than life itself. You know cheating is bad, it always has, especially when you took that pen and test paper during high school and had a little crumpled paper in your large palm that answered all of your test questions. Your lover, your current friend that time, had reprimanded you for such.  _ It would be better if you studied. Failing is an option, but is avoidable if you have determination. Cheating is never an option. Breaking someone’s trust without letting them know will only tarnish what purity you have left _ . It wasn’t meant to offend you — you knew yourself but not as much as he did. 

As a representative of the matter that is subject to change, you firmly believe and might as well have established this:  _ love is an entity that evolves for the better _ . Change is often used in cases that are either negated or came from negation. Sometimes, one can change even when one is already in a place of comfort. Like only finding hunger in anything that satisfies you. You conclude this to be an open-ended piece of writing. Not that you’ve lost your taste in it, but because you know it is better to leave things unknown and mysterious to others. Falling in love is a mystery itself. 

Your lover isn’t a necessity. You are aware of this. Because loving someone isn’t a need. It’s a want. A person isn’t born to mold the missing piece in you, just as you are not born to keep them perfect. They make you better but not flawless; they complete your days but not your body. You — never love him for what he can do for you. Love him for him. 

Writing is a love language to you. It is done with effort, to combat with your inner self to mold letters out of flamed metal, or satiate a broth from the river to form into words. There are instances when you can’t speak what’s on your mind, so you usually get misunderstood, but with your lover, you can’t afford to be misconstrued. You want him to understand you, and he does, despite the indecipherable you. Isn’t that nice, to be known and comprehended? You love him, so you spend your time writing your love for him; love letters, notes stuck on the refrigerator door or everywhere, sometimes notes passed on from palm to palm at school hallways. 

Here’s an unprecedented claim: loving is not done alone. Loving is done between two entities, be it of one and a different variable or one and a part of itself. 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading. i hope i did them justice. please consider bookmarking, giving kudos and comments instead of subscribing to me because i don't actually post here often. but if it's really your preference to subscribe to me, i do not mind :)
> 
> this was originally a vent fic that's why the pronouns referring to the lover/kita are they/them/their/s and eventually changed to he/him/his once the descriptions became more specific, although you can perceive kita using he/they pronouns as well :)
> 
> let me know if i have to put some cw/tw here so no one gets squicked.


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